Elle Luna kicked Webstock off this morning by inviting us to think less about what we “should” be doing and make room for what we “must” do. She suggested that when we consider our “should”s we might ask a few questions:

Where did this “should” come from?

Is this thing I “should” being doing really at the core of who I am?

Is this “should” something you want to keep a hold of you?

Elle suggested that we clear out those “should”s and make room for “must”.

What is your “must”? She suggested the best way to find out the answer to this is to ask your mother. Ask her what you were like a child. What was it you did? What made you joyful?

Can you carve some time in your life for this thing? this thing that makes your heart sing? this thing that is at the very core of you? find the space and sow the seeds of must: your drive; your passion.

We started the day with a focus on the dignity of work; the dedication to your life’s work; to your calling.

Product strategy and customer success

Then Des Traynor came along and talked about small, fast moving teams of software engineers and product innovators are making applications that are changing us. How we once used to go out for a cigarette and how fiddling with our mobile device is our new smoko break.

Des urged us to look to smooth the transition between applications; build on what’s gone before. Don’t remake the wheel so much as ease it from one path to another. Remove that friction and bring delight to the people using your product. Bring value, don’t bring features because shipping means nothing and usage is everything. You bloat your app and people'll abandon it.

Customer service and the chamber of secrets

Champion of front line call centre staff Matthew Patterson has learned a lot about who holds the knowledge - and it’s those hard working call centre support staff who deal with your product customers. They know what’s not working, they know what’s bugging the bejesus out of users. They’d tell you too if you asked them, if you included them in your communications sitting up there in your fancy-pants designer studio with your amazing vision boards and user experience journeys.

Let them know what kind of feed back you need and a platform to supply it and you’ll have excellent, relevant, valuable data about your product and your customer up to your wha-zoo before you know it. Don’t let information and knowledge get stuck between the floors of your organisation - create an environment and a means for info to flow between teams and you’ll be better (and maybe even richer) for it.

Writing in the real world

The whole time Kate Kiefer Lee was presenting, I hoped that certain members of my team were listening. She said that while "most people aren't professional writers but most of us write every day."

We write emails and reports, tweets and web copy. We write to communicate and if we're sloppy writers, we can cause confusion. We all nodded at the memory of some badly written email in our past that took ages to decipher or caused huge misunderstandings.

Kate walked us through her process for writing and I was chuffed to see it was exactly my process for writing (everything except blog posts which you get right off my fingertips, so sorry about that) everything from Tweets to emails to NaNoWriMo disasters - and it's pretty simple:

Start with a question or conversation, and then write the answer

Read it out loud - does it sound like you? does it flow? is it helpful and clear?

Get messy - get it written - that first draft is supposed to be shitty

Edit until your piece is clear, useful, and friendly.

I was surprised to realise that Kate worked with Nicole Fenton to write the book I'm currently reading. It was also delightful to see fellow-Content Strategy MeetUp'er and organiser Emma Knight hugging her newly signed copy at Webstock.

Designing for context not for device

A simple but vital shift in thinking - think about when people need information, and then get it to them regardless of the device they have in their hand, on their desk, or embedded under their skin (future-proofing this blog post).

Derek Featherstone presented a number of ideas, situations, and solutions to the concept of bringing value to information people need. He talked about what defining context meant; including time, proximity, location, capabilities and demonstrated a number of practical examples.

I really liked his idea of context mapping around an event supported by a website he and his team designed. They coded different situations into the site so, for instance, on the day of the event the schedule was the homepage because people visiting the site would need that, and changed the "Register" button to the email subscription one because registration was closed.

I might be ham-fisting this because his examples were refined and smarter than my memory - that's why I'm sharing the URL of his site below so we can both get better at remembering it's not about the box, it's about what we need right now regardless of context

Responsive fonts

"I tricked you a bit there," Kris Sowersby started his presentation by admitting "I used the word 'responsive' in there because I know you're into that."

So Kris wasn't here to talk about responsive fonts. Instead he treated us to an incredible, almost understandable (not because of him, because of the material) treatise on the human visual system which even survived Kris's realisation that he'd forgotten to print out all his notes "Hastag Webstock hastag fail."

He distilled his weeks of research into chunks of information that was intensely interesting and [mostly] comprehendible but, as he said "If you don't understand this, you only have yourselves to blame."

This hard metal loving typography designer has genius comic timing. He smashed his slot at Webstock and was an instant success.

Note for long-time thejamjar.com readers: Kris may just be the New Zealand version of our very own Bart Kowalski.

The magic and mystery of big data

Harper Reed came to the stage dressed for the part wearing a broken television test patterned suit as if he took all his fashion advice from Noel Crombie (who used to make the band Split Enz's fashion). He has the look of a crazed genius and that's probably because he just might be.

He urged us to not fall prey to the hype of Big Data but focus on the value in the numbers. Crank open Excel and get down to asking good questions and focusing on the answers data can give us. I lost count of how many times he told us to test and test and test again - to be skeptical of the data but at the same time: trust it.

Visual experience as a catalyst for institutional change

Now *that's* a catch title!

Full disclosure: I'm a Shelley Bernstein fangirl. Her last visit to Webstock charged me with such enthusiasm that I flew to New York (during my SXSW/Austin trip) to visit her Brooklyn Museum to see what they were doing in person.

I ambushed for a frenzied meet and greet today and hugged her hard - which I hardly ever do with anyone. I hope to have more poise and grace and have some conversational topics on board next time because she is such a shining example of a woman in tech and I am truly, such a fan.

Now she's back for a second time at Webstock and I was enraptured with what she had to say all over again. I get really excited when people understand that these skills we've honed and use for web applications are as powerful and useful out there in the real world spaces.

That the world, that the web, has no edges!

Building on Harper's talk about Big Data, Shelley talked of tracking all the information she can from visitors to the Museum, from the census, from anywhere and anyone she can get it from, to be of service to her community in Brooklyn.

They looked at the physical facade of the museum: what was the visitor's experience of the place before they even entered the building. They softened the edges with grass and communal areas; they remodeled the entrance to be less imposing; they set about doing the same to the no-mans-land of the foyer.

They looking at how people are greeted - a security guard and a human-sheep-run for ticketing, confusing ticketing desk and no where to sit. They tested and questioned and investigated and made decisions based on what they found out to build multi-purpose furniture and bring art to the people waiting to enter the building to look at the art (if you know what I mean).

They're using more and more technology too - still being rockstars with social media and their community, crowd sourcing for curation of projects, and activating programmes where their neighbourhood artist studios open up to the community that saw over 70,000 visitors experience where local artists work. They're using proximity devices inside the museum and working with the iBeacon crowd to improve their products.

My sketchnotes don't convey any of the information Shelley shared with us - I was so engrossed by her presentation. She does have articles and blog posts and a lot of what they're doing at the Museum is online so go take a look.

The manipulable city

Britomart in Auckland happened while I was living in Australia.

When I left to live in Melbourne in 2006, Auckland was felt like a sprawling lifeless place. Shared spaces, good restaurants, outdoor events - well that's why I was going to Melbourne because Auckland sure in shit couldn't come up with much at all.

Nat Chesire read his essay about building Britomart. He read it they way he'd written it: it was raw, it was authentic, straight off his fingertips and it was amazing. He spoke of the vision and the craziness, of the impossible challenge of turning 10 hectares into the heart of a city and he talked of the hard work.

The really hard work.

It read like an odyssey, like an epic poem. It was performed brilliantly - I'm not sure it translates the same when read but the link is below.

I didn't take any notes. I stood when I applauded. Afterwards I heard people say things like "I never wanted to visit Auckland, and now I do." "Even I didn't know how big that project was, I have to explore more." "Auckland has changed so much in such a short time, I am so proud of it."

A very dark matter

Honor Harger can't go throwing up the Rosetta Comet Landing, the Large Hadron Collider, and talk about the power of long term thinking and expect me to have the ability to break her spell long enough to take notes!

To be fair I was kinda ruined for Day One of Webstock from Shelley's talk onwards. I shall complete the sketchotes of this day when the videos are released.

So good. So very good. Day One was amazing. Webstock: Amazing. It couldn't get any better: and then out came Jason Webley.

The pyramid at the bottom of the garbage bin

I can't. I can't even. Jason told a story. He told a story of circumstance and chance and creative response and of Margaret.

I can't do him or the story justice - but will add a link to the video when it's published later in the year and you will understand.

Editor's note

Comment from the end of the day: Today's first Webstock speaker day was wonderful. Some parts of the day were sublime. There was even a standing ovation. This conference is the bee's knees - this is my happiest place.

I started typing this on Thursday 18 February and have completed it on Sunday 22 February. I was too tired over the Webstock days, not so much because of the typing, but because of the stimulating days and the tsunami of information shared so beautifully by the speakers.

]]>Webstock 2015MichelleTue, 17 Feb 2015 23:52:13 +0000http://www.thejamjar.com/blog/2015/2/18/webstock-20155007d068e4b077c0b1bef97b:543cb68be4b050243f0d6e5f:54e3d42de4b03b79ffdc2dceEarlier I suggested that words would come to accompany my photographs once I'd got my excitement under control. Well I think that the metric tonne of pasta I had for dinner has calmed (or buried) my excitement, I don't have any words that aren't soaked in marinara sauce - so here are a couple of photos from today - a lovely day catching up with Josh and enjoying the gorgeous Wellington evening.

This is me flying to Wellington for Webstock

I love that on the plane we can keep our 'lightweight' mobile devices on so long as they're in flight mode - that means I can take photos out the window and not incur the potential growling.

The whole North island is very brown - we could use some rain. gotta love those rippling ranges and jade-green water.

Free music in the park with a great turnout of families eating dinner and listening to sea shanties (who even knew?) before the main act.

Main act: the one, the only Wellington international ukulele orchestra.

Wellington sparkles

Home to find my fridge stocked with breakfasty goodness.

Webstock 2015 tomorrow. I'm now referring to it as my "religious holiday" and not even joking.

All my children, and grand children, have climbed trees. We have one in the back garden that has been grown and pruned especially for climbing. It is also sporting a very unattractive but quite helpful scaffolding to give better hand holds for safer climbing.

Watching the girls climb still makes me nervous though - especially when they're in dresses. They regularly have slipped holds and missteps and fall out of the tree and onto the grass below. They keep getting up again though; climbing up into the branches; learning about balance and strategy and how monkey swings and all that jazz.

One game that Dylan loves is Teddy Rescue. Her teddy is wedged high up into the tree and she has to figure out how to save Teddy. She *loves* this game. Especially the bit where she drops Teddy out of the tree once he's been rescued.

]]>I'll take that: Valentines DayMichelleSat, 14 Feb 2015 10:50:16 +0000http://www.thejamjar.com/blog/2015/2/14/ill-take-that-valentines-day5007d068e4b077c0b1bef97b:543cb68be4b050243f0d6e5f:54df2868e4b0a566f11ee682Look i'm in no position to be picky on today of all days so i will take this and share it with you.

For those who care about this day but aren't doing so well - Happy Valentines Day: it's nearly over.

I think about when i was in college…and just after collage which was my peak “doing stuff” years. Like I was always doing something. I was always going somewhere. I’d go two places in a day. I had a lot to do!

— Merlin Mann

The grand kids are busy being kids: one is washing the slide with the hose; one is helping Granddad paint the pantry doors; one is out on the street playing with the neighbour's kids.

The kitchen is tidy: dishwasher at the end of its cycle; bench is clear and clean; fridge is clean and rearranged; dinner is leftovers so ready-to-go.

Bedroom is half-arsed-tidy: laundry is almost done; devices are all charged; dog is snoozing on my half-made bed.

This is Sunday.

I've found a pocket of peace where I can knit the ears for the HopsAlots felted slippers I'm knitting for Chloe while listening to John Roderick and Merlin Mann talk to each other on their weekly podcast.

Listen along!

Now listen, there is no body in the world who loves constructing a theory based on two books he read and an Intro to Anthropology class that he took in the ‘80s more than me. I love that shit. I love to walk in the forest and see a rock and say ‘ya know, that rock probably [insert-bull-shit-theroy-here] igneous.

— John Roderick

Associated links:

]]>Christian Living class landed me my dream jobMichelleSat, 07 Feb 2015 09:45:00 +0000http://www.thejamjar.com/blog/2015/2/6/christian-living-class-landed-me-my-dream-job5007d068e4b077c0b1bef97b:543cb68be4b050243f0d6e5f:54d476f4e4b0a74b940360c3I grew up attending Catholic schools. One of the subjects at my Catholic High School was called Christian Living. It's pretty much was as it says on the tin.

We did a little bit of Bible work, but mostly we talked about - or were lectured about - living the life of a good Christian soul. I’d relay what that might be but I wasn’t listening; mostly I drew in my Christian Living book - the beginning of a lifetime of doodling with intent.

I took notes and drew curly-cues, wrote quotes in large bubble lettering, traced around my hand and wrote Simon and Garfunkel lyrics around its shape on the paper.

More than anything, I traced comics in my Christian Living book. Cartoons and comics I found funny from magazines. I looked studious but as I mentioned, I wasn't even listening half the time. I filled book after book, taping them all together until I had this thick wodge of pages full of these drawings and tracings and lyrics and hardly a word about living like a Christian.

I may have been accused of wasting my time in that class had the teacher not been so beguiled by my doubling ways. I never thought much of what I was doing besides staving off boredom from information I didn't think was relevant or true; I certainly never thought that attending Christian Living class was going to land me a job, let alone my dream job - but it did. It was pretty much the only reason I got my draughting apprenticeship.

Oh I got the initial job of Draughting Office Clerk for all the other things I had learned at school like typing, and English, and all that jazz; had I not spent all those hours tracing comics and being confident with making marks would I have accumulated all the skills I needed to impress the draughtsmen when I was called upon to update plans.

My handwriting was pretty uniform after all those hours of copying fonts from the Speedball catalogue to spice up my Christian Living page headings; my eye for tracing through fairly think school exercise book paper meant using draughting canson paper was such a treat in comparison; my ability to use ink without smudging or blotting was honed from watching felt tipped pens dry while my teacher droned on about doing unto others as we would have them do unto us blah blah blah.

I remember being told when they offered me the apprenticeship that when they showed the head draughtsman my example plan and that of the other applicant who had 2 years actual draughting experience over mine, he had incorrectly guessed who had drawn which plan thinking mine was the one with the experienced hand - and therefore I got the job.

I grew up my teenage years in a world that needed the catchphrase “Girls can do anything!"

Back in *my* day, girls were groomed for secretarial work, nursing, teaching, maybe a bit of lawyering if you were *really* smart, but eventually for marriage and children (not that there is anything wrong with that).

What we had back then was the beginnings, the kernel, the germination of the idea that girls could do anything.

In 1980 I had grown up not knowing that I couldn’t take advantages of any and all opportunities that came my way. Oh I knew I couldn’t learn to drive because my Grandfather said driving wasn’t for girls. I also knew that university wasn’t an option either because a) I wasn't smart enough to get schooled in the required subjects and b) I was far too immature for my age to consider such a lofty ambition.

I was, however, untapped potential, and anyone who spent any time working with the inexperienced me and had half a brain could see that. Which is why, after three months as a drawing office clerk, a good old fashioned respectable job for a young woman I might add, I was offered a four year mechanical draughting apprenticeship due entirely to skills gained due to my scholastic history of Christian Living and Typing - tracing and using office machinery.

Yes folks, if you were smart enough to smell it, I was ripe for the picking (sounds creepier than I meant it to).

That was in 1980. That was the year I started a *mechanical* draughting apprenticeship, which meant I had to study *fitting and turning*, trigonometry, metalwork, and sit Trade Certificate examinations.

It was the kind of opportunity the feminists who came before me had carved out for me. They had spent years making a world where I had more choices than had been afforded to them. I could choose to work. I could choose to have children. I could choose to do both those things.

I actually had choices.

That also means that I had a squewed view of the world thinking that girls *could* actually *do* anything. Which is why it’s flummoxing to see in 2015:

women expressing their own intelligent, well considered opinions being slammed by the media and politicians alike for being ungrateful

fewer women entering, let alone staying, in the world of tech and computing

girls and women shying away from the word “feminist"

I have three grand daughters with more coming in the future, no doubt. They (along with their male cousins if they should ever present themselves: I'm not fussy) will be encouraged to make things - smart things. Things with chips and circuits. Things with software and logic. Things that give them delight and solve their problems. Things made with their hands and their hearts and their minds. To bring their ideas to life through stories and mechanics and electronics and artwork and craft.

This plan started years ago; this plan included yesterday. Tandia’s astonishment and delight at making a computerised machine. Her enthusiasm for creating the stories we’ll feed into its computer chip. Knowing that in a few short weeks she's going to begin to learn about programming to get those stories into her machine.

These are the toys of today; they are teaching our smart girls of tomorrow. These are some the skills they need to have all the choices in the future.

In August of 2013 I backed a Kickstarter project for a ‘choose your own adventure’ machine.

When I was a very young teen, I graduated from horror comics (we'll talk about that later) to choose your own adventure (CYOA) books. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s where you decide which way a story goes. Every so often through a story you, the reader, gets to decide which direction the story goes. Maybe you decide to look in that creepy chest in the corner, or chase that strange man down the street, or drink the potion you found on the table. Your decision determines what happens next (you chose option two: go to page 29).

It was with a wave of nostalgia and a pang of childhood that I was delighted to find that my oldest grand daughter Tandia loved CYOA books. I mean Jesus, I read them over a century ago and her’s this little girl getting excited with the very same nerdy behaviours her Grandmother did (never.tell.her.that).

Fast forward to the future and Kickstarter. Funding great ideas is so much fun and when I saw the video for The Choosatron, I was in before you could add a t-shirt to my reward.

The Choosatron Deluxe Adventure Matrix is a Wi-Fi connected Choose Your Own Adventure®-inspired story printer, blending digital and analogue storytelling. It is designed to be easily assembled by kids into a small interactive fiction game box, and encourage social reading, learning, and play.

— http://choosatron.com/

When I backed this Kickstarter, I intended to build it with Tandia. Thank goodness the development of the kits took two years because I don’t think I have the patience with anyone younger than eight years old.

Today I helped Tandia with the build. She’s never used a screw driver before but took to it like an intern with something to prove. I read the instructions and only helped to check connections and screw-tightness. My big adult hands helped hold the sides together as we ended up having to tape the box with electrical tape after breaking the tension prongs - but all and all, Tandia read the instructions and built the Choosatron herself and we couldn’t have been happier.

]]>Selfie in tinfoilMichelleWed, 28 Jan 2015 04:11:42 +0000http://www.thejamjar.com/blog/2015/1/28/selfie-in-tinfoil5007d068e4b077c0b1bef97b:543cb68be4b050243f0d6e5f:54c8617ee4b008ef37785a14Who doesn't like a hairful of tinfoil?
]]>Paint of a different colourDrawing/ArtMichelleTue, 27 Jan 2015 08:08:32 +0000http://www.thejamjar.com/blog/2015/1/27/g151wb0vxiaox3sifbxxiz73c8sbbn5007d068e4b077c0b1bef97b:543cb68be4b050243f0d6e5f:54c7459ae4b0c1586e20ed68While my white pantry could use another coat of paint, work took it out of me today so I turned to a painting with a bit more colour.

Drawing outline in waterproof ink

This drawing was part of an exercise for Sketchbook Skool. Our tutor had us go outside so what better place for me than the roof of the building I work in. It has panoramic views of Auckland City, the harbour and is brilliantly sunny on a cloudless day.

I love a good strong shadow.

Sometimes when we can, we go upstairs to sit on the deck to eat lunch or just soak up some rays. We're pretty lucky to have such a lovely place in such an (otherwise) grotty building. When I draw people - which I don't do as often as I could to get better at it - I especially love backlighting and foreshortening. Catherine's long legs and her back to the sun qualified for my drawing preferences; along with the amazing backdrop of buildings and railings, I thought this scene looked great.

Swimming watercolour pigment across the paper

]]>Takeout because whiteoutMichelleMon, 26 Jan 2015 05:13:35 +0000http://www.thejamjar.com/blog/2015/1/26/takeout-because-whiteout5007d068e4b077c0b1bef97b:543cb68be4b050243f0d6e5f:54c5ccffe4b0afdbad2ab329I would be terrible on The Block NZ - two days of painting and I'm over it!

]]>The kitchen is closedMichelleSun, 25 Jan 2015 09:44:57 +0000http://www.thejamjar.com/blog/2015/1/25/a-day-of-painting5007d068e4b077c0b1bef97b:543cb68be4b050243f0d6e5f:54c4bb19e4b0d7a7fa7f525dMy idea to spend this morning tidying my pantry ended up with a whole day of paint prep and undercoating.

After pulling everything out of the pantry the old saying "in for a penny; in for a pound" kicked in and I decided to paint the whole cupboard.

Then I realised a whole wall could be cleaned and updated so just kept on painting.

Looks like tomorrow will be more of the same with a couple of topcoats.

These two drawings appear as one: my view from home and my view from work

I am currently working my way through the assignments for Sketchbook Skool's "Beginnings" online course. The idea of these courses is to encourage daily drawing and the benefits of keeping a sketchbook.

You might know that I enjoy drawing. I find it therapeutic and intensely satisfying. I don't, however, have a daily or even regular practice. I go in fits and starts, usually tying myself to courses and groups to get my pen moving across paper.

Sketchbook Skool seems to be well suited to my slacktitude. It's encouraging and interesting, and the community is gentle and easy to share with. I'm ticking along nicely and while I'm still in the process of developing a daily habit, my sketchbook pages are starting to fill with line and colour.

My biggest obstacle is a shyness about drawing during my work day. I don't suffer from this in drawing groups, or if I'm on my on (obviously) but do feel a reluctance to reveal this part of me to work colleagues. It's quite interesting to me that I feel this way - and that restricts the times of the day I can draw - so I really do need to get over myself if I'm to a) get faster and b) be more productive.

This was a fun exercise where I painted the colour first then overlaid the ink.